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The strange thing about the Juliana definitives in the Netherlands Antilles is, that the old design of the 1950 En Face definitives was used once again in 1979, even though they had been replaced in the 1950s by the Disberg definitives I showed you yesterday. The stamps were only released in booklets.

I quite like the bright colours of them (they do look better in real life, though).

The stamps were isued in February so maybe they were issued in honour of Juliana's 70th birthday (which was in April) or maybe they were issued in honour of her forthcoming abdication but I don't think that had been announced yet at that time. Hmm.

Oh dear, the title sounds rather ominous, but don't worry, it isn't really.

Yes, it does mean that this is the end of this blog. But fear not: I have been invited to start blogging for Stamp Magazine, so if you like what I've done so far, I would welcome you heartily to my new blog, which you can find here:

Gentlemen
I believe it was the Dutch engraver Sem Hartz who once said when talking about recess-printed stamps that they are the gentlemen among stamps. And how true is that! He had just as outspoken an idea about multicoloured stamps: rubbish! In his view a well-engraved stamp only needed one colour. So he would hopefully have been pleased if he could have seen this post of mine, for it will feature nothing but monocoloured recess-printed stamps!
I'm still ploughing through the stamps I got from my friend Paulo, you see, and there's quite a few of recess-printed stamps among them. The set that I like in particular is the 1966 set to mark the Tercentenary of the Solemn Promise to Our Lady of Luxembourg. In plainer English this means that in 1666 the Mother of God was chosen as Patron Saint for the City of Luxembourg. The stamps are engraved by abovementioned Sem Hartz and are absolute gems. He seems to have a bit of a fussy style, but there's so much to see on these, it'…